Desert Island Draft: Movie Edition

[godthedog 0]

I love being at the top, because it means I can make picks like this. I'm going to take what are probably my two favourite movies from the past fifteen years. I'm picking The Whole Bloody Affair:

 

Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003)

Kill Bill, Vol. 2 (2004)

 

I'm in the minority of people who liked the second better than the first, just because there was more of a story to it. But still...who didn't love watching Uma Thurman fight the Crazy 88's in Volume 1?

 

i knew somebody was going to do this.

 

i also like the second much better than the first--the first lives or dies on how good the battle scene is at the moment, and it's really uneven. there's also no point whatsoever to the mixed-up chronology.

 

this is neither here nor there, but i don't think this duo on the whole has aged very well at all. you can hear tarantino smirking to himself under all the dialogue, which is funny the first time but isn't very memorable.

 

Alien

Still one of the scariest fucking things I've ever seen. Ridley Scott reinvented the horror genre with this film, which starts as almost a classy sort of 2001esque highbrow sci-fi prestige film, but eventually turns into something very nasty indeed. Helped start a lot of young(er) actors' promising careers, and forever established Ridley Scott as a man to be reckoned with. And oh yeah, spawned a fairly massive franchise: books, comics, games, and a bunch of sequels which (aside from the first one) unfortunately just keep getting worse.

are you kidding? this is way better than the sequel. fucking thick with all sorts of menacing atmosphere, and you really feel the coldness of space.

[Jebus 0]

Was I the only one who couldn't get on the forums? I thought they were down since Monday morning! FUCK!

 

Well, since it was apparently my turn twice (that's what Jingus PM'd me), I'll just go with:

 

 

The Princess Bride

 

This movie has everything: Comedy, Adventure, Romance, Fantasy and, most importantly, Andre The Giant.

 

&

 

 

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

 

This movie still makes my jaw drop.

Figured I'd take it now after "Aliens" brought Cameron into the social conciousness of this draft.

[Jingus 0]

are you kidding? this is way better than the sequel. fucking thick with all sorts of menacing atmosphere, and you really feel the coldness of space.

It's hard for me to judge the two, since they're so fundamentally different. I will agree the first one is scarier than the sequel, and from a horror standpoint that's not insignifigant. I just prefer the second one, I thought it had a better overall story arc and more stuff going on underneath the surface.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

The animated sequence in Vol. 1 also loses a lot of its luster on repeated viewings. The first time, fantastic; a lot of the surprises, however, really are appealing just because they're surprises. I like Vol. 2 better as well.

 

Alien/Aliens has always been a tricky call for me. The former is much more layered, frightening, and chock full of subtext, but the sequel is a pitch-perfect sci-fi action adventure, which is a surprisingly rare commodity. Might pick Alien in a pinch just because there's one definitive, superb version of that; the Aliens director's cut has a lot of top-notch moments (namely Ripley in front of the forest projection, learning about her daughter) that make it better and deeper than the theatrical version, but some nonsense as well (the 5 minutes that reveal the colony before the Marines get there are probably the most damaging addition, draining the entire first act of any suspense or mystery).

 

If you take the franchise out of common knowledge, Alien wins easily. I can only imagine what the shock of the alien's birth and how it develops throughout the film would have been like had I not been aware of the lifecycle, Spaceballs, Sigourney Weaver, etc.

[Craig Th 0]

Ohh man, no one is picking my movies. I LOVE IT.

[Jingus 0]

some nonsense as well (the 5 minutes that reveal the colony before the Marines get there are probably the most damaging addition, draining the entire first act of any suspense or mystery).

God, ain't that the truth. It's not just a worthless waste of time, it aggressively hurts the flow of the picture. Stuff like that makes me wish I had the software to just edit my own versions of movies, because I liked the rest of the director's cut restorations (the scene with the automated sentry guns is particularly boss) but that part was just terrible. Kind of like the French plantation sequence in the aforementioned Redux, actually, it makes the whole movie worse.

 

And I'm with you on the wishing that I could somehow see the movie without knowing what was going to happen in That One Scene. All the references and parodies since then make watching it kind of like if I'd known who Keyser Soze was going into The Usual Suspects the first time.

[Craig Th 0]

I wish I was surprised that Vader was Luke's father.

[CanadianChris 0]

Dammit, I was hoping The Princess Bride would go unnoticed. I was picking it next time around for sure.

[Craig Th 0]

I already know what my 20th pick is going to be because NO ONE is going to pick. I hope not at least.

[CanadianChris 0]

Yeah, it's the same for me with my last two or three movies, I think. I know of at least two that no one here would ever pick.

[Jebus 0]

Draft board updated!

 

Sorry about my absence. I thought the message board was down since this was the only website I couldn't connect to.

What happened?!?! Technology just hates me, I guess.

 

Les Yeux, stop picking out of turn! They won't count and you end up revealing what you want.

[Gary Floyd 0]

I really don't want to be in this anymore. It's losing all it's fun now.

[Jebus 0]

LYSV has dropped out...

 

"The Wild Bunch" & "Blade Runner" are back on the market.

[Jorge Gorgeous 0]

Can I have his spot? I'll pick twice and then take his order.

[Jebus 0]

Sure, go ahead.

[Jorge Gorgeous 0]

Goodfellas - 1990

 

This has been my favorite movie since the day I saw it. It is both romantic and gritty. Ray Liotta is at his best, DeNiro puts in one of his last great performances, Bracco is sexy, Pesci is fantastic. It's got everything, including a lot of comedy. The famous scene is Pesci doing his "funny how?" scene, but I think the scene where Pesci is talking to his mom about THIS painting is even funnier.

 

 

The first hour of the movie made me want to be in the mafia SO bad. It made me long for my New York City roots and a time when neighborhoods were run by gangs that wore ties and smiled. It made prison look great! It made me, to this day, use a razor to slice garlic so thin it melts in the pan.

 

I'll be honest, it falls apart a little at the end... but so does Henry's life... so it feels appropriate. The dream is exposed, the romanticism wilts, and all that's left is Ray Liotta's craggy face. Whatever. I love this movie.

[Jorge Gorgeous 0]

On the Waterfront - 1954

 

Such a great movie. Elia Kazan and Marlon Brando at their best, in my opinion. Add to that a Leonard Bernstein score and a screenplay that was originally written by Arthur Miller before Budd Schulberg took it over. It's touching, dramatic and it's the first "old" movie that ever took me in. Plus, Brando is perfect in this. Perfect.

 

I can't really do this movie justice with my reasons for picking it, so I'll just leave this.

 

Charlie: Look, kid, I… How much you weigh, son? When you weighed 168 pounds,you were beautiful. You could have been another Billy Conn. And that skunk we got you for a manager. He brought you along too fast.

 

Terry: It wasn’t him, Charlie, it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and said, ‘Kid, this ain’t your night, we’re going for the price on Wilson.’ You remember that? ‘This ain’t your night.’ My night--I could have taken Wilson apart. So what happens he gets the title shot out doors in a ballpark. And what do I get? A one way ticket to palookaville. You was my brother, Charlie. You should have looked out for me a little bit. You should have taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn’t have them dives for the short end money.

 

Charlie: Well, I had some bets down for ya. You saw some money.

 

Terry: You don’t understand! I could have had class, I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it. It was you, Charlie….

 

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

I want him out of the draft. Unlike the other guy...this one takes movies I like.

[CanadianChris 0]

Goodfellas - 1990

I'm sorry, we don't want you here.

[Jebus 0]

I knew I'd regret letting Jorge in

[Craig Th 0]

Is Funk up next?

[CanadianChris 0]

No, we're back to the original order, so it's Next USC #55.

[Jebus 0]

It's been well over 12 hours...godthedog can make his pick.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Not so fast-

 

I'll add the frills to this post later but I'm taking The Magnificient Seven.

[Jingus 0]

Motherfuckers be slow. It's now godthedog's turn, but at 5:13 EST we're once again past the 12-hour mark and it goes to PGOAT.

[godthedog 0]

motherfuckers be havin' lives and shit.

 

 

Rear Window

 

can't go without a hitchcock, and can't have a better hitchcock than this one. simple, lean, and elegant. grace kelly's entrance is the stuff dreams are made of. ray

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

 

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

 

The finest work of satire since Swift. The screenplay has quotables out the ass and the direction is totally on-point and top notch all the way through, but it's the two unbelievably great comedic performances turned in by Peter Sellers and George C. Scott (with an assist from a supposedly not-in-on-the-joke Slim Pickens) that really put it over the top.

[Jebus 0]

Corey's time has elapsed. Ravenbomb can make his pick.

[Ravenbomb 0]

12 Angry Men

 

At least I get my top 3 movies. Twelve great actors in a room for an hour and a half, and nothing else. There've been times I watched this movie two or three times in one day.

[Canadian Brandon 0]

12 Angry Men

 

At least I get my top 3 movies. Twelve great actors in a room for an hour and a half, and nothing else. There've been times I watched this movie two or three times in one day.

 

I hate you. Has anyone seen the new dvd of this movie? I considered buying it recently as I am curious about what special features were on the dvd. But yeah...great film.